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The Bitola inscription is a medieval stone inscription written in Old Church Slavonic with Cyrillic letters. It was found in 1956 during the demolition of an old Ottoman mosque in the town of Bitola, Republic of Macedonia and it is now kept at the Institute and Museum of Bitola among the permanent exhibitions as a significant epigraphic monument, described as "a marble slab with Cyrillic letters of Ioan Vladislav from 1015/17". The text commemorates the fortification works on the fortress of Bitola under a certain Tsar Ivan. It is believed to date it from c. 1015 and the monarch in question is Tsar Ivan Vladislav of Bulgaria.
Contents
Text
The text of the inscription is partially damaged. The text, with some conjectures made by Vladimir Moshin and Iordan Zaimov to reconstruct the damaged parts, reads as follows:
Controversy
In the Republic of Macedonia any link between the Cometopuli and the First Bulgarian Empire is denied. Because of that the historical and political importance of the inscription was the reason for a controversial event there. In 2006 the French consulate in Bitola sponsored and prepared a tourist catalogue of the town and printed on its front cover the entire text of the inscription, with the label Bulgarian clearly visible on it. News about it had spread prior to the official presentation of the catalogue and was a cause for confusion among the officials of the Bitola municipality. The French consulat was warned, the printing of the new catalogue was stopped and the photo on the cover was changed.